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Jamestown Community College continues to see an upward trend in their enrollment numbers. The college's new retention plan outlined the new data for this year's fall semester during Tuesday's board of trustees meeting.
What started back during the 2025 fall semester, due to the State University of New York’s Academic Momentum Campaign, is finally coming to fruition as the school's PRCC (Pathways Retention Coordinating Committee) presented enrollment numbers for the fall 2026 semester.
Chaired by Sarah Bright, an associate professor at the Olean, New York campus, Jeanne Frerichs, coordinator of retention, and Morgan Francina, director of the success center, the committee's goal is to identify what core values JCC has as it relates to retaining their students.
"JCC is incredibly good at retention," said Bright. "We are first amongst our Integrated Planning and Advising Services (IPAS) peers with graduation rates, and we are second in SUNY community colleges overall and that's a reflection of all the hard work our faculty and staff do every single day."
Some areas the committee gathered the metrics from was retention data related to certain minority groups at the college, such as gender, PELL Grant recipients, athletes, learning location, and more. Most data shown in the report appeared to be over the course of the past five-to-six years, which overall showed an increase each year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For first time, full-time students attending in Fall 2026, there was a six-percent increase in enrollment. For all students at JCC this semester, there was a seven-percent increase in enrollment.
"The majority of that increase in enrollment was online students," said Frerichs. "Our committee did an inventory of our retention efforts. We identified four priority areas of action ... The first two really involve that connection-entry period of students at JCC. That first-year experience, research shows how important retention is. The third priority action area is with faculty, they're onboarding and development. And then we need to see where the gaps are and what data we need to collect as well as figure out how we are going to use that data to really support our efforts ... It's also what happens outside the classroom. How to connect students to each other, to get involved with the community, clubs, athletics, music and arts on campus."
One way the committee gathered data is through an annual early progress survey, which is sent to every student enrolled in classes via the success center. It asked things like 'What are you struggling with right now?' and 'Do you feel supported at JCC'?
Francina, who was presenting the data gathered from the survey, stated that the college had a record number of survey participants this year.
"We actually have 239 respondents," Francina said. "112 respondents was pretty much the average number until now. All of the reasons we are seeing are pretty much in line with what we see when a student does a total withdrawal. Time management, balancing work-to-life ratio, adult learners who have families and/or full-time jobs, and other responsibilities outside of school."
Overall, the survey provided a lot of positives and insight for the PRCC and the retention plan.
Some other topics of conversation addressed at the board of trustees meeting included an update on the college's north county property in Dunkirk. Karen Fuller-Markham, vice president of finance and operations, confirmed that there are no active offers on the property, but that it still is for sale.
In terms of athletics, Vice President of Student Experience Ron Shidemantle told members of the board that the school is looking to hire an athletic trainer, a position that has remained vacant for quite some time, and additionally, coaching staff for a potential women's flag football and wrestling program at the college's Olean campus.
JCC serves roughly 6,000 to 6,500 students each year. Traditional academic program enrollment represents roughly one-third of total annual enrollment, with the rest coming from Workforce Development training, College Connections courses for regional high school students, and microcredentials.